Three heats in and I don't know if I can actually finish watching the X Games "rally car racing". Maybe it will be improved if I turn the sound off and don't have to listen to the commentators any more. They are so clearly not familiar with rallying that it's sort of painful for me to listen. Motor sports are different enough from the other action sports at X Games that the commentators don't have a good sense of what they're looking at, and their commentary comes across as ill-informed.

I'm also rather disturbed by the number of drivers running whose claim to fame is from a discipline other than rallying. One of them, they commented he ran his first rally back in June. I'm left asking why they think someone with so little seat time is going to be able to be competitive, much less put on a good show? I know they have the name to bring the fans in, and I know they're having fun. But it takes a lot of time to build skill at handling a car, and without the practice time you don't get that sharp edge where even the uninitiated can look at it and say "that guy's good."

That aside, I have been thoroughly enjoying the Games. I really want to be out there with my camera, trying to grab some action shots. And there's just something fundamentally cool about people getting out there trying stuff that's ridiculously hard for no reason other than that it looks cool and it might be possible.

(As an aside, maybe that's what bugs me about the rally stuff? All of it is pretty tame by rallying standards, and yet from the X perspective they think it's a bit crazy? A car losing body work on a 70' jump just doesn't impress me -- particularly not on the same weekend that the Rally of 1,000 Jumps, Rally Finland, ran.)

Edit: All that said, there was a few bits of mighty fine driving in there. And while I'm not keeping a copy for the archives, I'm not sorry that I spent the time watching it.